The gangs risking their lives for copper in South Africa
Life and Art from FT Weekend
Forhecz Topher
4.6 • 601 Ratings
🗓️ 2 June 2023
⏱️ 22 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week, we meet the South African gangs stealing copper to survive. When the journalist Monica Mark moved to Johannesburg, she noticed that copper theft was causing disruptions across the country: power went out, trains were cancelled, and her neighbourhood Whatsapp group was livid. She wanted to find out who was behind it. So she tracked down a man who used to be in a copper gang. His story is a unique look at South Africa's current struggles with high unemployment, vast inequality and a global market willing to turn a blind eye for profit.
Don’t forget! Send us your top summer tip: what’s one thing that you’d recommend people do to have the perfect summer? Deadline is Sunday, June 4. Record a message here: http://sayhi.chat/15xxg
You can also email us at [email protected], tweet us @ftweekendpod, or message Lilah on Instagram @lilahrap.
--------------
Links:
– Monica’s magazine piece: https://on.ft.com/43gop8N
– Follow Monica on Twitter @nickswicks
--------------
Special offers for Weekend listeners, from 50% off a digital subscription to a $1/£1/€1 trial are here: http://ft.com/weekendpodcast.
--------------
Original music by Metaphor Music. Mixing and sound design by Breen Turner and Sam Giovinco.
Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hi, listeners. I am here to invite you to be part of our summer episode, which is coming up soon. |
| 0:07.7 | We're having Matt Vela on. He's the editor of FT Weekend magazine. And basically he and I want to help you have the summer of your lives. |
| 0:16.1 | So this is what we want. Send us one small thing that you like to do that makes your summer like 90% better. |
| 0:23.7 | We've gotten a lot of really good ones. Someone wrote in quit your job, which is tempting, |
| 0:30.1 | but we were thinking more along the lines of buy the mangoes they sell on the street or be the last one on the beach. |
| 0:36.5 | Anyway, we have a link in our show notes where you can easily record us a voice message |
| 0:40.3 | and send it straight to us. |
| 0:41.9 | Matt and I will play some of them on the show. |
| 0:44.6 | Okay, onto the show. When the journalist Monica Mark arrived in South Africa in 2019, she started hearing about a problem |
| 0:58.8 | that was plaguing her new neighborhood almost immediately. |
| 1:02.8 | Everybody in South Africa is affected by Kopper there. |
| 1:06.0 | I moved here about four years ago and I joined my neighbourhood WhatsApp group. |
| 1:13.6 | And, you know, those groups are some people who are on all day and lots of chatter. |
| 1:18.5 | But the one thing that came up consistently that everybody would kind of join in was complaining about when the power would go off, either because of copper thieves, |
| 1:29.3 | or because when the lights had gone off, |
| 1:31.3 | they would kind of under cover of darkness, |
| 1:33.3 | go and seal more wiring or whatever it was. |
| 1:37.3 | Electricity shortages are a problem in South Africa, |
| 1:40.3 | but this went beyond the usual. |
| 1:43.3 | Thieves were cutting electrical wiring, and it was causing the lights to go out. |
| 1:48.3 | Specifically, they were cutting wire made out of copper, because recycled copper is in really |
| 1:53.5 | high demand. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Forhecz Topher, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Forhecz Topher and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.